


Ça qui fait mal, ça qui fait bon

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Porn, Comfort Sex, Episode Related, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, X-Files Porn Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:49:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: It is the only alchemy in which she believes.





	Ça qui fait mal, ça qui fait bon

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 2.15 "Fresh Bones"  
> A/N: For the XF Porn Battle, from the prompt "Fresh Bones" and "sexy massage".  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She’s still shivering when they leave the graveyard. Mulder is fine. Her hand itches, but there’s not even a mark on it anymore. She should be fine.

She’s not fine.

Mulder drives, by unspoken agreement. He checks the steering wheel first, but there are no thorny vines. Colonel Wharton expected them to be taken care of by now. There should be no more juju. Still, she runs her palm over the seat before she sits down, flinching at any snag. Mulder drives with one hand on the wheel and one arm cradled around his stomach.

“Does it still hurt?” she asks.

He glances at her. “No,” he says. “But it feels better this way.”

The drive back to the hotel is uneventful but they’re both jumpy. Scully thinks she sees a black cat and whips around to look out the window.

“What?” Mulder says in a voice slightly tinged with alarm.

“Nothing,” she tells him, still gazing into the dark.

He stands behind her protectively as she unlocks the door to her hotel room. She opens the door and gestures at her side. 

“All your stuff’s in here anyway,” she says. They’d worked together to repack his bags and cache it in her room after a dead man had been found in his bath tub. He couldn’t stay in a crime scene. Theoretically, he had been assigned a new room, but Scully doesn’t want to be alone and she imagines he doesn’t either. He slides in past her, the edges of his trenchcoat catching against her buttons, and turns on the tv. The news is a low comforting murmur in the background as she locks the door and sheds her coat. He has already taken his off and draped it over a chair, and he folds his suit jacket over it as she watches.

“Can I look?” she asks. “At your stomach.”

“I’m fine,” he says, but he doesn’t object or move as she tugs the tails of his dress shirt out of his pants. She unbuttons the bottom few buttons and keeps going all the way up to his throat; the motion is soothing, ordinary, and the more she saw of him, the more at ease she feels. He looks so casual and relaxed, standing there half-undone, and her nerves jangle a little less at the sight of him. There is no blood anywhere on the white fabric of his shirt or his undershirt. She pushes her hands gently up under the hem of his t-shirt. His abdominals flex slightly under her palms. She examines his smooth tan skin with its dusting of dark hair.

“You’re fine,” she says, standing up straight. Her hand is still pressed to his stomach.

“I know,” he says. He gently takes her other hand and turns it palm up, tracing the lines across it with his fingertip. If she believed in astrology, maybe she’d believe he could rewrite her life, or perhaps they already have together, when she chose him over those who had sent her to him. 

“No more swelling,” he says. 

“In the car,” she begins to say and then stops. She does not want to relive the moment when a hand forced open a hole in her own hand and a ghost rose from the back seat to wrap its unnatural fingers around her throat. Mulder’s thumb caresses her palm. A sudden thread of desire sprouts from the roiling in her belly, like a tendril of ivy clutching at any purchase it can find. As if Mulder feels it too, he lifts her palm to his lips, imprinting the shape of them against her skin.

“Better?” he asks. 

“Mulder...” she says, as if she can make his name contain the things she can’t manage to say.

“More?” he asks, kissing her palm again. 

“More,” she agrees. That much she can manage.

He strokes her arm to where her sleeve rests, her hand still pressed to his lips, and she needs even more. She pushes her other hand up under his shirt until her fingers are resting over his heart, the beat of it strong under his firm pectorals. It isn’t enough. She draws back and tugs at her own buttons; the hurt in his eyes changes to a glint of understanding. He shrugs off his shirt, strips off his t-shirt, and stands bare-chested before her. She is down to her bra, but she can’t wait any longer. She presses herself against him, skin against golden skin, and gasps with relief. The warmth of him soothes something inside her. The tendril of desire wraps around both of them. She can feel it take hold. She strokes his back. He kisses the top of her head, his hands moving over the muscles next to her spine, his thumbs pressing the tension out of her. She gasps for breath, like he’s the shore she’s washed up on, and he holds her closer. She lays her cheek against his chest.

When she can breathe again, soothed by the lullaby of his heart, she turns her face to nuzzle at his broad sternum. Now his breath catches in his throat. When she kisses his collarbone, she can hear the thud of his heart.

“More?” she offers, her hands still moving over his back.

Now he is the one who says, “Scully...” and trails off. She kisses him again, tracing the contours of his muscles with the tip of her nose. She lets her tongue flicker out to taste his skin with its faint flavor of salt and stress. They have had a difficult night. She wants no comfort other than confirmation that they are still whole, that this latest threat has left them physically unscathed. She can hear his doubts, his hesitation. She feels them too. But nothing makes her feel more alive than Mulder does. The touch of his hands on her back crackles. Desire takes root more and more strongly in her belly. She slides her hands around his waist, her thumbnails dipping into the waistband of his pants. She can feel his cock stirring against her. She has not always loved her body unconditionally, but she does love the logic of bodies: one sensation overcomes another. Pain is gated. Fear transforms into longing. It is the only alchemy in which she believes.

She kisses him again. Her thumbs stroke firmly against the ridges of his muscles, gently over the knobs of his bones. She can feel his longing in the way his fingers clench against her back. His palms slide down to cup her ass. He pulls her gently against him. She digs her nails lightly into his waist and shifts her hips, pressing against the firming mound of his erection.

“More,” he says at last.

She kicks off her shoes. They each undress themselves, driven less by romance and more by deep-seated need, but the relief she feels when her nude body is pressed to his is immense. She could drown in that relief. She has forgotten to take off her bra, but she doesn’t care anymore. She walks backward to the bed and pulls him down on top of her. The weight of him is a blessing; the tension in her body eases, everything in her quiet except want. His luggage is on the bed next to them; he props himself up and rummages through it until he finds a condom. He cants himself off her and rolls the condom on. She lets her hand follow his, stroking down the latex-covered length of his cock. 

“Is this what you want?” he whispers, barely audible over the mumble of the newscasters from the television. She’d forgotten it was on. All she could hear before was the beat of his heart, the hush of his breath. 

“Yes,” she says. “Is this what you want?”

“Oh yes,” he says. He stretches out on his side and she matches her body to his. For long moments they just lie there, stroking each other, an awkward amateur massage that still soothes. Finally she reaches down to catch his cock in her hand and he draws his palm down the back of her thigh, lifting her leg over his hip as she guides him in. She can feel her own wetness as she slides a finger between her folds to open the way for him. Oh god, how she wants him, how she needs him. She pushes herself down onto him and he fills her up until she groans from the rightness of it. She has never been lacking, but this is gestalt theory. Together they are more than the sum of themselves.

He curves his body to kiss her mouth for the first time and she leans up into him like only his breath can resuscitate her. His hand is still wrapped around the back of her knee, holding her open, and he thrusts slowly into her as she kisses him. She wraps an arm around his neck, holding him close. Somehow he has managed to maneuver the arm he’s laying on so that if she angles just right, his thumb grazes her clit. They move against each other, into each other. She opens her mouth and lets her tongue slide against his, the intimacy of the touch jolting deep inside her, more profound than she’d imagined. He reaches her everywhere, without even trying, and still she wants more.

She’s shivering again, but it isn’t with the chill of fear striking deep into her bones. The tension winding her muscles tight is hot and joyful. Mulder lets his hips still and shifts until the arm he was laying on is under her ribs instead, pulling her close. The hand on her leg slides under, pulling her knee higher into the crook of his elbow, but his fingers reach her clit, stroking and stroking until her whole body is shaking. The way he’s moved means his cock has slipped almost out of her. She pushes down onto him, almost frantically, catching his fingers between their pelvises. He doesn’t complain or withdraw, just kisses her more deeply. She can feel desire coiling tighter and tighter inside her, the former tendril now strong enough to pull her apart, and she grinds against him until she’s panting into his mouth, kissing him with a blind desperate sloppiness that he answers in kind. All at once she implodes, the entire soul of her clutching at him, her body shaking until every molecule is in the right place, realigned and renewed. She rolls onto her back, pulling him with her, and he thrusts into her with a fierce gratitude in his eyes as she spreads her legs wider, wanting him even deeper. Pleasure still shocks through her; she strains up against him, feeling his muscles tensing, and he groans as he comes, bucking into her. She holds him close, even though she’s so sensitive that her nerves almost yelp at the pressure of him. He collapses gently onto her and she holds him tight. After a long moment, he presses up and rolls off next to her, pushing his bags until they teeter on the edge of the bed. 

“I needed that,” she whispers. She runs her trembling hand over her stomach. It’s damp with their mingled sweat.

“Me too,” he says. 

“We’re okay,” she says, mostly to affirm it to herself.

“It’s all over,” he says, reaching for her hand and pulling it once more to his lips. “We’re all right, Scully.”

“We’re better than all right,” she says, rolling onto her side to drape herself over him. They’ll have to get up in a minute, and clean themselves up, and decide what they’re doing, but for the moment, she’s going to glory in the comfort they’ve found in each other, and the affirmation their bodies have spoken. Tomorrow there will be questions to be answered. Tonight, it is enough that they have survived. They escaped the graveyard. Their bodies are their own again, cleansed and sanctified by the pleasure they have given each other.

She closes her eyes and listens to the synchronized thump of their hearts slowing to rest.


End file.
